Mouse Among The Lions
by dontgiveahoot
Summary: Yaoi. From Duo's POV. Follows the lives of the Gundam pilots after the war... and Duo is frightened at where Trowa's heading. Duo x Trowa.


A MOUSE AMONG THE LIONS.  
  
Author: Quoth the Raven.  
  
Rating: PG-13, I guess.  
  
Warnings: Shounen-ai, implied het, angst, and a few bad words.  
  
Pairings: Read and see. But there's 2+3, if you want to know that much.  
  
From Duo's POV.  
  
***********************  
  
I've never been able to stand seeing some poor helpless creature in pain. It's just not *right* -- everything in me wants to jump up and scream, protest, fix whatever's wrong. I've always been like that for as long as I can remember, I guess it's not a bad thing.  
  
When I was little, I saw a mouse in a mousetrap once. It had almost got away -- almost, but just missed out on escape. It's tiny hind leg had been caught in the metal bar as it snapped down, and the poor thing had been there for God only knew how long. Don't think I love mice or anything -- normally I hate the little buggers. Rats and mice were everywhere, eating our food and dirtying up the places where Solo and I had to sleep. Sometimes they even crawled right over me. I learned to tolerate them, but I never liked them.  
  
But this one was only little, and something in its eyes just... I couldn't do NOTHING, you know? So I pulled up the bar and I watched it try to limp away. It was so damned weak from struggling to get free, though, it couldn't do more than a crawl, dragging the mutilated limb behind it, leaving a tiny trail of red behind.   
  
[The cats'll get it,] I thought, [midnight snack time for them.] Y'know, food chain and all that. I was only a little kid, but I knew how the whole shitty world worked. You get born, you live, you suffer, and if you're weak you get ripped apart and eaten 'cause you're not good enough to survive. But there was something I found morbidly fascinating about that limp, slow movement, forced out of the mouse by survival instinct, by something built in and ingrained so deep that not even the worst agony could stop it. Then it was as if it knew it didn't stand a chance, as if the orders stopped coming. It crawled into a corner and waited to die.  
  
So I picked the poor thing up in my hand. It just sat there, trembling in my palm, leg totally maimed and smearing blood on my hand. It was patiently enduring the pain, because it just didn't know anything else. Quickly, before I could think about it, I snapped its neck. And it lay there in my hand, just like before, only no more pain in those eyes. I was so relieved and happy for a minute, the pain in those eyes that wrenched my gut was gone.   
  
And then I realised that everything else was gone, too.  
  
I dropped the mouse and threw up. The bile from my empty stomach splashed on the little fuzzy body. [I made the poor thing wet now,] I thought. But still, at last the mouse looked peaceful, even if it was dead. Even if its eyes were still open. At least I'd done it quickly, painlessly. I just couldn't stand to watch it fight on with that kind of crippling pain because something told it to, or to see it waiting to die because something else dismissed it as not worthwhile making that effort.  
  
You can imagine it was a hell of a shock for me to come across that exact same look in a pair of human eyes many years later, during the war. Oh sure, the movements were all there, still being commanded by orders that could not be countermanded. But inside the eyes -- it was there. I could see the pain that had crippled a heart, silenced a voice, driven a soul into itself. No wonder he tried to hide his eyes with his hair. It was even harder when I fell in love with the owner of those eyes -- to love someone that sends daggers into your heart every time you see their face, simply for what's in their gaze. I resented him for it. I even tried to hate him. But in the end I couldn't. I was so damn angry whenever I thought he'd betrayed us for OZ, for Marimeia; but he never had. He just kept on going, and in the end I just kept on loving him. It's just that now I'm admitting it.  
  
And now, years later again, I can see the pain still.   
  
It sounds completely ridiculous to compare a lion tamer of all people to a mouse -- but he is. There's no fear in him, not in the sense that most 'normal' people would feel fear. I do remember him saying once that animals like lions, predators, will only attack those that either seem like potential threats, or that seem vulnerable, potential prey. Therefore, he explained to us as he introduced us to his beloved lions, if you show no fear and FEEL no fear, but respect, you will be fine. Okay, but if they DO pick up on vulnerable vibes, why don't they see the pain and view Trowa as prey? Does he hide it so well that even a predator can't see it? Were there so many predators in his life that he had to learn to hide it perfectly from them? Are the lions less frightening than dealing with his life? Probably, and that's the worst part. But he's not afraid, not of the lions -- he really loves those big cats.  
  
He's afraid of himself though.  
  
Yeah, it's crazy, isn't it? Crazy that someone (and I heard THIS one off the ringmaster) who can stick his hand in a lion's cage without a second thought at their first meeting and have them purring in five seconds flat could be afraid of any beast inside. It's insane for someone who has piloted a Gundam -- Heavyarms, a walking ammunitions storehouse, at that -- want to sell bullets for a profit? Go talk to Trowa, he was forever running out of the damned things at the worst times. But you can't buy stuff that blows up emotional crap that hangs round your heart.  
  
Pulling off incredible stunts poses no problem and no fear at all for him. Heero once told me that he jumped off a motor bike going at full speed, flipped in the air, landed on a clothesline -- a CLOTHESLINE, for crying out loud -- then just stuck his hands in his pockets and casually strolled off along the line. And oh yes, let's not forget standing at a board and having razor-sharp knives thrown at you by your sister. Eve if she misses, and cuts you? Hey, no sweat. It's all part of the job, right?  
  
But facing what's inside -- ah, that has him scrambling to get away, every time.   
  
You know, sometimes I can't even look him in the eye? It's been three years since the Marimeia incident ended, since we finally got to be normal people for once. We all see each other a lot, us five, and he's the only one that I ever have trouble looking directly in the eye. He's the one that's still the most... haunted... of us all. Not that we all don't have some ghosts to some degree, we can't all forgive ourselves, but we're getting there.  
  
I'm probably one of the lucky ones -- I'm enjoying my job, and I'm enjoying hanging around Hilde. Don't get the wrong idea or anything, we're not in love, but we're great friends and two of the best damn co-workers you'll ever get. Between the two of us, we're doing pretty damn well, if I don't say so myself.   
  
Heero's off working with Sylvia Noventa and Relena, being a bodyguard and computer programmer and generally being his normal oh-so-sociable and cheerful self. But he's learning how to be something other than a soldier, at least. He's learning that it's no sin not to be perfect, that it's okay just to be human, to be plain old Heero Yuy instead of the Perfect Soldier, Pilot 01. And with those two nice girls on his case -- I think he's getting there. Y'know, now that Relena's matured over the years, she's really become a nice person. A lot different from the girl I used to know. And Sylvia's a great girl too. They've got their work cut out for them, but between the two of them Heero is in good, caring hands.  
  
Wufei? The Preventers for him. He's having enough fun, spouting about justice all the time and growing his ponytail and occasionally visiting his destroyed colony to pay tribute to his dead wife and clan. Note I say paying tribute, not beating himself over the head with it constantly like he used to. I think he's finally forgiven himself, even a little. He's lightened up a bit -- I guess that's Sally's influence on him. They're getting married this year.  
  
Quatre? Oh, he's doing just fine. Head of the Winner family business, he's as cheerful and friendly as ever. He's also a bit worried about Trowa, but not as much as I'm worried. Not as much as he should be. I guess love really does make you blind.  
  
I don't know who among us was the most stunned when Quatre and Catherine hooked up. I mean, Catherine HATED us for continually dragging Trowa into the war. It's weird, but once the war and the fight over who 'needed' Trowa was over, they fell for each other, and hard. Whenever you're with them, it's like you're not really there, no matter how many other people are in the room -- they barely notice your presence. It's unnerving, to have your existence totally invalidated like that, though of course they don't mean it. If I feel like that... how must Trowa feel?   
  
Oh, I asked him once. He just said that he would never interfere with the happiness of his best friend and his sister, and that he could not ask for more than for Quatre to be his brother-in-law. He means it, I know he does, and yet... I think, from a few little signs I saw when he was around Quatre before he and Catherine got involved, that maybe he was hoping... But that hope was crushed out and hidden long ago, and anyway, I don't know, I'm only suspecting.   
  
Damned if I know how Quatre can choose the wrong sibling... if it had been me... but then it's not me, is it? But at least I'm not in Trowa's position. For me, it's just an "it's not me" this time. Poor Trowa. It's never been you, has it?   
  
He goes down to the lion's cage a lot these days, apparently. I asked some of the circus staff last time I was there. When none of the rest of us are there and Quatre is visiting Catherine and they're talking or laughing together, Trowa quietly slips out to avoid invading their privacy and spends hours with his big cats. He even slept in that cage more than once when Quatre was, ahem, 'visiting' at night. I don't think either of them even know about it. Not that I'm saying anything against Q-man or Cathy, mind you, but I really think that they could notice a few things rather than just asking the expected questions and taking "I'm fine" at face value. But then again, Trowa's always been good at hiding, melting into the shadows, and right now the two of them are living in rosy light.   
  
When Quatre finally pops the question... and it's practically a given that he will, unless Catherine asks first, and you know I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised... where will that leave Trowa? I mean, I can't imagine either of them, particularly Catherine, being satisfied with their married life being like the way it is now, with occasional visits to the circus being all the time they have together. And Quatre has a business to run and he sure as hell can't run away with the circus. Trowa might have up and joined in three seconds flat, but he's the only one of us who could. None of the rest of us have any kind of skill that would matter to a circus. So Catherine will almost certainly leave the circus and move in with Quatre.   
  
And Trowa will have a choice. Follow Quatre and Catherine -- because of course they'd offer him a place in their home without a second thought, they're both generous and sweet people -- and remain a silent third wheel in that home forever, or stay on at the circus alone. His lion taming and acrobatic skills will guarantee him a place for as long as he wants it.   
  
If he wants it.  
  
The mercenary groups -- the first "family" he ever knew -- are gone. Heavyarms is gone, the war is gone. But he at least had the two most important people to him -- his sister and his best friend. When his sister is gone, emotionally and financially secure with his best friend, and he only gets a few calls from them, will his beloved lions be enough to keep him anchored here? Or will he still be enough like that mouse? Will he crawl off to an unknown corner and just wait until he simply fades away, and a nameless body is found years later?  
  
No. NO.  
  
I am a salvager by trade, and a soldier by training. And I love him. I fight my most important battle, do my most delicate and vital salvage work ever -- his heart. I swear, I will save Trowa from his pain... one way or another.  
  
Even if the only way is to cradle him in my arms and end his pain with my own two hands.  
  
Oh, don't think I'm psycho or anything. I love him, and I want him to live -- maybe if I'm lucky enough, he'll not only live, but love me too. I'll try anything and everything else first before I concede defeat and grant him permanent release from pain. I swear I'll do my best. I just hope and -- yes, I pray, this is worth praying for, he is worth praying for -- that it will be enough.  
  
##OWARI FOR NOW##  



End file.
